"Well, the Slayer always says a pun, or a witty play on words, and I think it throws the vampires off and makes them frightened because I'm wisecracking. Okay, I didn't exactly have a chance to work on that one, but you try it all the time."

Sometimes humor may be used to distract the amused opponent, while at other times the humorist may literally cause his audience to Die Laughing.

Examples:

open/close all folders

Anime and Manga

In the Pokémon anime, Ash's Haunter saves the day by making Sabrina laugh with its antics.

Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo is nothing BUT Comedy as a Weapon - in-universe, it's an actual fighting style known as Hajike (Wiggin in English) used by most of the main characters. It mostly consists of unpredictable attacks sight gags and puns used to confuse or drive their opponents (and sometimes their allies) crazy.

Comic Books

The obscure Marvel Comics superhero Captain Ultra (who became a standup comedian in his secret identity) once faced 'Angrr, The Demon Without Humor'. He defeated it by telling a joke. Justified in that it was a magical being vulnerable to comedy, though Ultra claims that "telling Ultra-Funny jokes" is ones of his powers (not likely.)

The Donald Duck comic story "Zio Paperone e i predoni dello spazio" has Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge go after Space Pirates, but first they run into a helpful, but pacifistic Reality Warper animal which transforms their disintegrator rays into laughter-inducing rayguns. These prove highly effective in debilitating the pirates.

Film

In Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Eddie defeats the Weasels by making them laugh until they die. Roger even states that in dire situations, laughter might just be the only weapon you have.

In Patch Adams, the titular character believes in helping patients through humour and laughter.

In Wizard and Glass, Eddie kills Blaine the Mono by telling him a lot of lame jokes. They are not just lame jokes, they have no logic, no smart puns. He basically kills Blaine with non-sequitors.

The monster Dandelo in the final book has the ability to tell jokes that induce literally killing laughter in his victims.

In the end of Making Money, Mr. Bent, a bank manager who's the son of a clown, upsets the trial of Moist von Lipwig by throwing pies and performing stunts with a ladder. Admittedly, he mostly only serves as a distraction, but he does manage to also bring the ledgers that Vetinari needs in order to determine that the gold was stolen before Moist arrived at the Royal Bank.

More seriously, he also nearly manages to paste Vetinari in the face with a pie. Given the reputation damage that would have resulted, and that in Anhk Morpork's political instability it could have ended Vetinari's tenure as patrician, Moist jumping in front of it is treated as Taking the Bullet.

The "World's Funniest Joke" sketch revolves around a joke so funny that people translating portions of the joke have been hospitalized for accidentally reading too much at a time.

In the "Piranha Brothers" sketch, Doug Piranha kept his underlings in fear by his use of sarcasm. "He knew all the tricks - dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. Grown men would pull their own heads off rather than see Doug."

Video Games

The results of sword fights in the Monkey Island games are based entirely on insults and puns.

In Quest for Glory IV, The Hero must make use of The Ultimate Joke in the game's final battle. While the joke itself is not lethal, it will incapacitate anyone (even a vampire with no sense of humor!) by making them laugh uncontrollably the first time they hear the joke.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy